


There's A Fine Line

by thealpacalypse



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mental Institutions, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, set post S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealpacalypse/pseuds/thealpacalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham always wondered what insanity felt like. Now he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's A Fine Line

„I imagined it a bit different – going insane.“

The psychiatrist takes her notes and Will presses his lips together. He hates it, getting pathologized like a white lab rat, but he forces himself to get used to it. It's not like they're going to stop doing it any time soon.

Her name is Dr. Kent, she's young but somehow so afraid of him she can't even look at him most days. Doesn't matter, Will won't look at her either, he's got so accustomed to staring at the ground all the time.

“Then how did you imagine going insane?” Dr. Kent doesn't ask him, she asks her notepad, while she pretends she's busy underlining the words ' _more tranquilizers prior to sessions?!_ ' for the fourth time. She has one of those college girl hand-writings, letters really big and not very ornate, and Will has no problems reading everything she writes, even though it's upside down.

Will coughs. He wants to say something witty and sarcastic, something like: ” _Oh, you know, I thought I'd get into the mood of killing people more, like all the crazy guys I know._ ” But he knows sarcasm scares Dr. Kent and he doesn't want to scare her, because then she really might give him more tranquilizers – he doesn't want that, his head feels sledgehammered enough already, and she just wont stop drawing slow, parallel lines under the words ' _more tranquilizers_ '.

Instead he says: “I thought being insane would free a person from living with the consequences of their actions. But that's not true, everything in life has its consequences. Being insane just eliminates all the other reactions to a person's actions and leaves only the fact that nobody will think of these actions other than the work of a crazy person.”

For the first time in this whole session Dr. Kent looks up, maybe to see if Will's face holds any explanations to these vague words. When she sees that Will reads her notes, she puts down her pen and closes her notebook.

“What do you mean by that?” she asks with a voice that is supposed to be calming. Will runs his fingers through his hair – it's gotten too long by now, bangs and curls limiting his field of vision. His facial hair is also getting out of hand, of course they still keep him away from sharp objects, even though Dr. Kent noted down a while back: ' _no suicidal tendencies or violent behavior observable_ '.

After a while he answers: “See, if I told you that you're doing your job all wrong, you wouldn't listen to me because you think that I'm this patient that killed a lot of people. Even though you know you're not doing it right – how could you understand me when you're not even able to look at me. If I told you that I liked your blouse, you would probably worry and never wear it again, ever, because if 'that crazy serial killer guy' thinks it's a nice blouse there must be something wrong with it. It doesn't matter who or what I am anymore, because all my actions and words are marked as crazy. Never mind that it was just a sickness and that I'm almost fully recovered now, because everyone thinks that there must've been something wrong with me from the start, otherwise it would've never escalated like this.”

Dr. Kent has picked up her note pad and pen again and scribbles intently, this time holding the note pad in a different angle so that Will can't read anything. Will also notices how she shifts uncomfortably in her blouse and he already regrets saying what he said, because he's sure Dr. Kent has just crossed out the question mark in the tranquilizers-note. Next time he sees her he'll be pumped full of tranquilizers because she will have told someone about Will's 'aggressive tone'.

On the other hand... he might as well go one step further, it's too late now anyway.

“ _If_ I told you that I know for certain I am not the copycat killer, it wouldn't matter, right? You wouldn't even think twice about it, because of course in your opinion there's a simple psychological explanation for me to 'deny my actions' or what ever you may call it. Isn't that so, Dr. Kent?”

Her mouth twitches nervously by the sound of her name. She seems to struggle with finding the right words to say, because of course she's not allowed to prove him right, she's not allowed to declare him crazy, but it's her job to remind him how important it is for his mental health to come to terms with what he has done. Finally she replies: “I understand that you are frustrated about your situation. Now that you've almost fully recovered from your encephalitis you can't comprehend how sick you've been and what your sickness has done to you. But all I'm seeing here is how you desperately want to show me how 'sane and normal' you always have been. You don't do yourself a favor when you run away from the truth.”

He stops to listen then while she talks a lot more.

What is so very ironic about this is:   
Before, he was so confused, never sure what to believe. Before, everyone waited for him to solve the riddle and to tell them the right answer.   
Now he knows. Now his head couldn't be more clear, though it could be faster without all the numbing meds, he doesn't doubt anymore that he can separate truth from disarray. He knows he is innocent and he knows that Hannibal Lecter is somehow responsible for making it seem otherwise. He knows that, given the possibility, he could prove Dr. Lecter's deeds within days. He knows he could solve the whole thing now, if they just let him.

But they won't, because now he has crossed the line to insanity and there's no way back from that, not really.


End file.
